As a new affiliate marketer , it is incredibly easy to get side tracked by all the internet "chatter" out there. Inboxes get quickly filled with "the next great thing" that will earn tons of money and solve your financial problems immediately and with minimal effort. It"s so easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information out there.
Like a good entry-level worker, I began researching internet marketing. I found what I felt like were some good resources and began to select Clickbank and other products to market. Along, the way though, I"d receive an email from a "guru" who said I was doing everything all wrong and I HAD to do things his/her way or I"d never be a success. If I would just sign up for their offer, I"d be financially free in no time. I became so busy reading about every success scheme out there, I completely got off track with my own marketing. I began to get frustrated that I wasn"t making any sales and couldn"t get anything started.
I looked at my empty Paypal account and realized that I had signed up for trial subscriptions for at least 15 different programs. Most of them were close to the end of the trial program and I was going to be billed $97 month for the majority of them in the next few days. Some of them, I had no idea what they even were! No wonder I wasn"t making progress - I was too busy signing up for the greatest new things! How to get out of this mess?
After much thought and a bit of soul searching, I"ve listed the steps I took to get myself back on course and begin making progress and, yes, even a sale or two! I hope these will help you to begin to move forward also.
1.I started by going through my Paypal account and looking at everything I had subscribed to for the "free trial" period. I was amazed to discover that I had no idea what many of them were. I had signed up for so many, that I had forgotten about most of them, so I definitely wasn"t getting any use out of them. Why keep a useless subscription? So, I went through and cancelled every subscription that I had and that I couldn"t tell immediately what it was for. I cancelled all but two. I ended up with a subscriptions to Google Sniper and Wealthy Affiliate University.
2. I went through my email box and unsubscribed to the million e-mail newsletters hat I had signed up for. That"s where a lot of my confusion happened because my inbox was so stuffed with things I just didn"t remember reading about or signing up for. That"s not to say I hadn"t, I just couldn"t remember it. So, unless I specifically remembered someone"s name, I unsubscribed to everything. I was left with just a few high quality newsletters that actually had helpful information. I also set up individual folders for each newsletter and set filters so that new ones would go straight into the appropriate folder.
3. I had downloaded a TON of ebooks and various tools. Just like everything else, I didn"t have a clue what most of them were and they were saved in various places on my computer. I had downloaded some several times, but never used them. So, I went through and removed all duplicates and then reviewed each download I had to decide if it was something I thought actually had quality content or was it just a thrown-together freebie. I looked through my tons of plr articles and free ezines and discarded most of those.
After doing these things, it was time to get organized. You can"t organize until you know what you"ve got! Once I culled out stuff I wasn"t using, I could see that I had actually a pretty good basic arsenal, but I needed to be able to use it well and be able to find what I wanted.
First, I started a spreadsheet. On the first page, I listed the subscriptions I had (Wealthy Affiliate and Google Sniper). I wrote the URL and my login and password. I also make a columns that showed when my renewal would be due and how much it was a month. This way I could track it so I wouldn"t be surprised when it automatically renewed. This also helps me see how much I"m spending.
Next, I made a list of the trial software I still wanted to experiment with. I wrote down the product name, date I signed up for the trial, end date of the trial and how much it would cost per month after the trial ended or if I decided to purchase the product.
Next, I started a new page for my newsletter subscriptions. I wrote down who it was from, what their main product and webpage is. For example, Travis Sago, http://www.bummarketingmethod.com. I also set up folders in my email for each one and set up filters so that when a new message was sent, it would go directly into the folder, instead of languishing in my inbox. I could keep them organized and wouldn"t have a full box of junk that I would never read.
Finally, I made folders on my desktop for the PLR articles that I wanted to keep and the various downloads. I make a folder for PLR articles, one for ebooks, and one for tools. Then, I filed each one in the appropriate folder. I decided that I wanted to keep up with some websites that had good content, so I made a .txt file and listed helpful websites and what information I found there that I might use. That way, I had a good working group of downloads, but also had references in cast I wanted to find more.
After all of this, I finally began feeling much more focused and grounded. I knew what I had and where to get things that I didn"t have, but might need or want some day. I decided to start a "wish list" of programs I might want to try some day or consider purchasing in the spreadsheet I had set up previously.
Now that I knew what tools I had, I began to work through Google Sniper and setting up my "sniper sites". Amazingly, I was able to make one in an evening and get it out there in cyber land so it could begin its climb up the Google rankings. (Visit my Sniper Blog here:
My FirstSniper Blog It seemed like after I got organized, even that went faster! I also had more time to explore Wealthy Affiliate University and follow some of their training, experiment with some of their tools and visit their forum. Since I wasn"t jumping from one "great new thing" to the next, I began to find out what I should be looking for in a quality program and what wasn"t just a "fly by night, get rich quick" ripoff.
After all of this, I am making progress and am seeing the results of my efforts. I have some blogs and Sniper sites out there. I am writing articles to get more traffic to my blogs and sites and I have begun networking with other internet marketers. I am also beginning to make some sales which makes my Paypal account happy! I can look at program or product and tell whether it might be worth exploring or if it"s a waste of my time. If I might want to explore it, I put it on the "check it out later/wish list" so that when I have time, I can look at it in depth and make an informed decision, as opposed to jumping into it headlong on an impulse. I am also working on developing my own product.
I hope this has helped you. My system my not work for you, but I encourage you to set up a system that will work for you and then use it. If you do this from the beginning, it will make things so much easier and you will be able to be focused and start making money sooner rather than later!
